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Pavlov Shack Drops Quest 1 Support, Preparing For QA Submission

From uploadvr

An update from Pavlov developer davevillz shed some light on the progress of Pavlov Shack.

Pavlov Shack is a new version of the popular multiplayer VR shooter, and has been in development for Quest for quite a while now. But it might finally be making its way over to the official Oculus Store soon. Over a year ago, Shack made its App Lab debut, bringing a sudden rise in players.

However, a new update from developer davevillz indicates that the team will soon release a final beta of Shack, which will be sent to Meta’s QA team in submission for an official full release on the Oculus Store for Quest.

In the same tweet, davevillz also revealed that Shack will be dropping support for the original Quest headset. This is because the team “encountered performance regression/issues on the new engine” on Quest 1, which “forced [their] hand to focus on Quest 2.”

Pavlov started its life as a competitive shooter for PC VR, heavily inspired by the Counter-Strike franchise. Pavlov Shack is the Quest spin-off of the original, scaled-down for Quest’s standalone hardware and currently available for free in beta on App Lab.

The official Oculus Store release for Shack has been a long time coming, initially scheduled for last year. It will hopefully release soon after being approved through the Quest QA process. The full release on Quest will cost $24.

A version of Shack is also planned for release on PSVR 2, once the headset is available. Both versions of Shack, on Quest and PSVR 2, will support cross-play with each other, but not with the original PC VR version of Pavlov.

Meta Slows Hiring For Some Positions As Reality Labs Priorities Shift

From uploadvr

Meta is cutting back or postponing some projects in its Reality Labs division and halting hiring for some positions.

Reuters first reported earlier this week that Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth broke the news to Reality Labs staff in a weekly Q&A session, according to a summary of his comments viewed by Reuters, with more specific changes to be announced within the week. We independently reached out to Meta about the report, and a spokesperson reiterated to UploadVR they’re “evaluating key priorities,” not planning layoffs “at this time,” and “so far, Meta has hired more engineers in Q1 than all of 2021.”

While Meta’s Reality Labs revenue grew 35% year-on-year in Q2 2022 ($695 million, compared to $534 million Q1 2021), costs  grew 55% as well, up to $3.7 billion from $2.4 billion in Q1 2021. During a recent earnings call, CFO David Wehner said the growing costs were “driven by employee-related costs, R&D operating expenses and cost of goods sold.” While those numbers may appear big at first glance, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave warning ahead of time by signaling a $10 billion loss in overall 2021 profit related to the company’s VR/AR investment, while also warning he expects that investment to “grow further” for the next several years.

Despite the increase in costs, revenue from Quest 2 continues to grow and Meta plans to expand its consumer headset offerings building out from the standalone platform. A high-end consumer headset, codenamed Project Cambria, is slated for release later this year. Two new Quest headsets and a subsequent iteration of Cambria may be in the works for 2023 and 2024 as well, according to a recent report from The Information. The company also opened its first brick-and-mortar consumer store this week, selling Quest, Portal and Ray-Ban Stories sunglasses.

While Meta isn’t alone among platform-building tech companies that seem to be preparing to weather a “market downturn“, Zuckerberg’s investment in realizing VR and AR technology remains significant and we’ll be curious to see how the company focuses its efforts going forward. In June, for example, the poorly rated Venues app will disappear as events move inside Meta’s broader Horizon Worlds effort.

Kiwi Announces Battery Strap For Quest 2, Coming Soon

From uploadvr

Accessory company Kiwi announced its take on a Quest 2 battery strap, available soon.

Since the launch of the original Quest, we’ve seen a bunch of official and third party takes on battery straps that extend the playing time of standalone headsets in various ways.

This week, accessory company Kiwi announced its version of a Quest 2 battery strap, pitched as featuring a 6400mah battery built into the back of an Elite-style strap for the headset.

Just like other options, this strap from Kiwi will not only extend the time you can spend in Quest 2 in one session, but should also act as a counter-weight to balance the weight of the headset more effectively.

Kiwi says it is using a battery from Amprius, a California-based company that claims to ship batteries that are “the industry’s highest energy density cells”. Looking at the tweet above, it seems this 6400MAh Amprius battery will be located right at the back of the strap, similar to Meta’s official battery-clad Elite Strap option. In our testing, Meta’s Elite Strap provided about “double” the playtime to Quest 2.

The VR Power 2 — a pack which connects to the standard or Elite Quest 2 straps — features a 10,000MAh battery, roughly 3500MAh less than Kiwi’s option. In our testing, we found VR Power 2 added 6 hours and 10 minutes onto the standard Quest 2 battery.

There’s no exact release date for Kiwi’s battery strap, but keep an eye out for further details soon.

The Information: New Quest Headsets Slated For 2023 & 2024 Release

From uploadvr

Meta is planning to release new versions of its Quest headset in 2023 and 2024, The Information reports.

A Four-Headset Roadmap

Meta plans to release four virtual reality headsets between now and 2024, according to an internal road map seen by The Information (subscription required), including two new Quest headsets.

According to The Information, the Quest headsets are code-named Stinson and Cardiff — both names that take after locations in California. This internal naming trend is one that Meta (formerly Facebook) have followed since 2014. Crystal Cove was the code name for what would become the Oculus Rift DK2, for example, and Monterey for the original Quest headset.

Meta also plans to ship its higher-end Project Cambria headset later this year, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg said will be more focused on remote work use cases. While The Information’s report suggested Cambria could retail for $799 or higher, Meta confirmed to UploadVR that the final price point will be “significantly” above $799.

The road map rounds out its four-headset plan with code-name Funston, a second version of Cambria, set for release in 2024.

All in all, that’s two new Quest headsets and two versions of the higher-end Cambria line releasing between now and the end of 2024. As noted in the report, these dates are all subject to change. The nature of developing such complex hardware, along with now-common pandemic and supply chain delays, means that targeted ship dates will often slip.

Quest 3 and 4?

In a March 2021 interview with The Information, Zuckerberg said Meta was already “working on the next few generations of virtual reality and what Quest 3 and 4 are gonna look like.”

It’s unknown whether Stinson and Cardiff are the Quest 3 and 4 that Zuckerberg referred to last year. While Quest 2 followed this numbered naming convention, releasing as the second generation of the Quest product line, Stinson and Cardiff may not be full generational leaps. There’s a chance either headset releases as a mid-generation refresh or as a variation of an existing Quest headset at a higher or lower price point, with different features.

Eye & Face Tracking On Quest

Zuckerberg Wants Face Tracking

Cambria (which, at one point, was referred to as ‘Quest Pro’ internally) is targeting launch this year and will ship with both face and eye tracking capabilities, alongside color passthrough for mixed reality. Zuckerberg previusly noted that his excitement to bring this eye and face tracking technology to future Quest headsets, when possible. Given Quest’s standalone hardware optimizes for low cost and currently starts at $299, Meta will face significant technological and financial challenges in bringing this technology to Stinson and Cardiff.

Leaked photos suggest that Cambria will feature controllers that ditch the traditional tracking rings, instead using built-in tracking cameras on controllers themselves. This would alleviate headsets of some tracking responsibility, allowing the controllers to track themselves using IR cameras instead.

Project Cambria Controllers

Zuckerberg told investors at his Q1 2022 earnings call that Meta will “share more details about Project Cambria in the months ahead as we get ready to launch it.” The headset will not replace Quest 2, which Meta reiterated will have a “long life” just a few months ago.

According to The Verge, Meta also plans to ship its first generation of true AR glasses, Nazare, in 2024, following by more advanced second and third generation models in 2026 and 2028 respectively.

Meta confirmed it will “share the latest on our VR, AR, and metaverse platform offerings” later this year at its annual Connect conference, which usually takes place around September.

Wallace and Gromit VR Experience Announced For Quest

From uploadvr

Aardman Animations announced a new collaboration with Atlas V and Meta to bring a new Wallace and Gromit VR experience to Quest 2.

Wallace and Gromit: The Grand Getaway will release for Meta Quest 2 in 2023, which Aardman says will be the “next step” for the pair’s adventures in immersive media after the mobile AR experience ‘The Big Fix Up’, which released last year for iPhone and Android.

Here’s a description of The Grand Getaway, direct from Aardman:

In ‘The Grand Getaway’, holidays are in the offing for Wallace and Gromit. Sun, sand, and the chance to test out their latest contraption, Auto-Caddy. But Wallace has his dates mixed up – they have to be on the other side of the country in just half an hour! There’s only one thing for it… they’ll take the Rocket. But a mishap with the controls sends Wallace, Gromit and Auto-Caddy hurtling off course. Will this be a holiday to remember?

Funded by Meta, The Grand Getaway will be a co-production between Aardman and Atlas V, allowing players to “walk around, explore and get hands-on (or paws-on!) within the world of Wallace & Gromit.”

Aardman is an animation studio known for a myriad of successful animation properties, movies and shorts, including Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Shawn the Sheep and more. Atlas V, meanwhile, is a production studio that has also worked on animated movies, but focused around immersive VR experiences and narratives, such as Gloomy Eyes, Battlescar and Madrid Noir. It will work on this new Wallace and Gromit experience in association with studios No Ghost and Albyon.

I was a big fan of Madrid Noir – it made some interesting stylistic choices with how it framed narrative in an immersive medium. There were sections where the animated characters were staged like a stage play occurring around you, with dramatic lighting and environments that almost looked like a movie set. The history of strong stylistic presentation makes me excited to see what a Wallace and Gromit collaboration with Aardman will look like. On paper, it’s a match made in heaven.

You can read more about The Grand Getaway over on Aardman’s site.

VRChat’s Avatar Dynamics System Aims To Upgrade Interactions

From uploadvr

A new system for avatar interaction is now available in VRChat enabling users to interact with each other’s avatars in new ways.

The Avatar Dynamics system was in open beta earlier this year, but now it’s fully launched and provides a host of new options for VRChat users.

One part of the system is PhysBone, shown above. It is a more optimized replacement for DynamicBones that allows users to create physics-based bone and skeleton structures on avatars. There are several different interaction types that can be set up for an avatar. It also works on Quest, meaning that Quest users will be able to see moving hair, ears, clothes and more with real-time physics for the first time.

Avatar Dynamics also allows users to create unique interactions with avatars through user-defined colliders and tags, as seen below. Users can set colliders on certain parts of their avatar to result in different things — a costume change, a sound effect, or a state change, for example.

With this new system also comes a host of new settings that allow users to define and quickly change who can interact with their avatar. There are ways to disable interactions immediately, and players can also set rules and change settings to limit interactions in different ways — they can be turned off entirely, or set to just your friends, or changed on a per-user basis. The status of a user’s interactions settings — enabled or disabled — will also display above their nametag for others to see.

The Avatar Dynamics system is available in VRChat now. You can read more about the features and the associated privacy and safety settings over on the VRChat blog.

Amazon Job Listings Reference ‘New-To-World’ AR/VR Consumer Product

From uploadvr

Amazon job listings reference a “new-to-world” AR/VR consumer product.

Spotted by Protocol, one listing explains “You will develop an advanced XR research concept into a magical and useful new-to-world consumer product” while another references “developing code for early prototypes through mass production.”

Another job listing describes the role as working on “the core system interface along with end-user applications spanning from multi-modal interfaces to 3D AR entertainment experiences”.

Protocol also spotted that in March Amazon hired Kharis O’Connell to lead a “Futures Design” group, described as “helping Amazon experience what it’s like to live in the future, today”. O’Connell once worked for the now defunct Meta View startup, and then worked on Google’s AR operating system.

Amazon is the only consumer tech giant with no announced or rumored AR or VR headset product. Meta has its Quest VR line and is working on AR glasses too. Microsoft has its HoloLens AR headsets. Multiple reliable sources claim Apple is working on a mixed reality headset, and The Verge reported Google is too.

The company currently sells “smart glasses” called Echo Frames, but these lack any display system or cameras – the use cases are talking to Alexa, taking calls, and playing music. It’s possible – even arguably likely – that Amazon intends to develop this product line into AR glasses in the long term future.

If you’ve got information to share with UploadVR you can email us via tips@uploadvr.com.

Beat Saber Electronic Mixtape Announced: Deadmau5, Marshmello, Zedd & More

From uploadvr

Meta just announced Beat Saber’s next set of DLC tracks at today’s Meta Quest Gaming Showcase. The Beat Saber Electronic Mixtape will feature 10 hits from artists like Deadmau5, Zedd, Marshmello and more.

Most DLC packs for Beat Saber focus solely on one artist, but this pack will be the second DLC ‘mixtape’ release which features an array of different artists from one period.

Here’s the full tracklist of the Electronic Mixtape:

  • Waiting All Night (feat. Ella Eyre) by Rudimental
  • Witchcraft by Pendulum
  • Icarus by Madeon
  • Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff (feat. Rob Swire) by Deadmau5
  • Alone by Marshmello
  • Stay the Night (feat. Hayley Williams) by Zedd
  • Sandstorm by Darude
  • The Rockafeller Skank by Fatboy Slim
  • Freestyler by Bomfunk MC
  • Animals by Martin Garrix

As you can see, there are some big names and hits in the pack, but perhaps the most prominent is Sandstorm by Darude. IT’s one of the most iconic electronic songs of all time and a huge internet hit/meme track. In other words, it could be a perfect addition to the Beat Saber catalog.

The Electronic Mixtape release date follows on from the Fall Out Boy DLC, released last month, and has no confirmed release date as of yet. That being said, the time between announcement and release for Beat Saber DLCs tends to be pretty short, so expect to see it sooner rather than later.

As usual, the pack will be available across all platforms — Quest, Rift, PSVR and Steam — for a bundled price of $12.99 or an individual track price of $1.99 each.

This was just one announcement from today’s Meta Quest Gaming Showcase — keep an eye out for news on more releases and updates to come.

Pico Neo 3 Link Supports Uncompressed PC VR Via DisplayPort Cable

From uploadvr

Pico just announced the Neo 3 Link launching to European consumers. The hardware is almost identical to Meta’s Quest 2 – but with one important difference for PC VR.

Neo 3 Link and Quest 2 are both standalone (essentially VR consoles) but also support PC-based VR if you have a gaming PC, letting you play the VR content on Steam and elsewhere.

Both headsets let you do this wirelessly over your home Wi-Fi network. But Wi-Fi has considerably less bandwidth than display cables meaning the video stream has to be compressed, reducing the quality and adding a small amount of latency. Further, problems like network congestion and signal degradation can cause stutters and hitches.

Both headsets also support wired PC VR – but Pico Neo 3 Link’s unique feature is how its connection differs from Quest’s.

Quest’s wired PC VR support works via USB. This avoids the problems of wireless but it’s still a compressed video stream, since even USB 3.0 has considerably less bandwidth than display cables. It also can introduce new issues, as not all motherboard USB controllers can handle this kind of use case.

Pico Neo 3 Link’s wired PC VR mode uses DisplayPort, with a 5 meter cable included in the box. Just like PC-only headsets such as Valve’s Index this delivers an uncompressed video stream with no extra latency and no USB issues. The Neo 3 is both a standalone headset and a “real” PC VR headset, in one product.

Meta may be planning its own PC VR advantage. Last week code was found in the Quest 2 PC drivers referencing an ‘Air Bridge’ wireless USB dongle. This may never launch as a product, but if it does it could avoid many of the issues inherent in using your home Wi-Fi network for wireless VR. Still though, it would be a compressed stream.

With Neo 3 Link supporting native uncompressed PC VR at €449, it could be an attractive option for buyers in Europe looking for a cheaper alternative to the €649 HP Reverb G2 and €1079 Valve Index kit for SteamVR.

Free Relaxation & Meditation App Liminal Available Now For Quest

From uploadvr

Liminal is a new relaxation and meditation app on the official Quest store, and it’s available for free.

Liminal started its life as an App Lab release for Quest, but as of today is available for free on main Quest store. According to the description, it has “over 60 experiences to calm, invigorate or leave you in awe” including “hypnotic experiences, guided meditations, beautiful rainswept vistas or ethereal landscapes.”

Liminal VR CEO Damian Moratti and Managing Director Nick Busietta spoke to the Oculus Blog about the app, stating that it was inspired by VR itself after they tried early experiences on headsets in 2014. Since then, they’ve been conceptualizing and developing the app “in one way or another.”

The developers say Liminal was created “ground up to be native to virtual reality— there’s nothing quite like Liminal on the market at the moment … [it] offers a unique assortment of Calming, Energizing, and Awe-Inspiring experiences that are ranked and rated by our community in order of effectiveness and enjoyability.”

There’s also a full-time behavioral neuroscientist working with Liminal, as well as psychologists who have helped consult and worked with the team, to craft the experiences.

More is planned for the future as well — the developers say Liminal is a live platform and that “new and evolving content is always at the forefront of our development pipeline.” They say to expect new content and categories over time, alongside some long-awaited features and a subscription option to access premium features.

Liminal supports Quest 1 and Quest 2 and is available for free on the Oculus Store now.